19 April, 2010

"LA NATION" SUED OVER SREBRENICA DENIAL

Article 261 of the Swiss criminal code punishes genocide-denial. Currently, anybody is punishable in Switzerland if they "deny, belittle, or relativise genocide or crimes against humanity".

"La Nation" Genocide Denial Lawsuit

A human rights group is suing a Swiss newspaper for denying there was a Serb genocide of Bosniak people in the town of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Fadila Memisevic, of the Bosnian branch of the Germany-based Society for Threatened Peoples, said her organization filed suit jointly Monday with the Swiss Association Against Impunity, TRIAL, in Lausanne. Swiss law prohibits genocide denial.

The semimonthly La Nation recently published a series of articles claiming that 2,000 soldiers were killed in the "pseudo-massacre" in Srebrenica.

Bosnian Serb forces overran the Bosniak town in July 1995 and executed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. In 2007, the International Court of Justice ruled the executions were genocide.

What about Alexander Dorin?

We reiterate our calls to Swiss human rights NGOs to include Alexander Dorin in their genocide denial lawsuit. Dorin is a Swiss pseudo-researcher who authored and published a genocide denial book entitled "Srebrenica — The History of Salon Racism" (Srebrenica — die Geschichte eines salonfahigen Rassismus).More about Alexander Dorin can be found at this link: "Alexander Dorin is unqualified pseudo-researcher and discredited Srebrenica genocide denier."

Islamophobia in Switzerland

Srebrenica genocide denial in Switzerland should be be viewed in the context of emerging European Islamophobia - or prejudicial hatred of Muslims. The rise of Islamophobia in the Switzerland culminated in a nationwide vote to prohibit future construction of minarets on their soil. In a November 2009 referendum, a constitutional amendment banning the construction of new minarets was approved by 57.5% of the participating voters. Only four of the 26 Swiss cantons, mostly in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, opposed the initiative.

Such measures "are manifestations of Islamophobia that stand in sharp contradiction to international human rights obligations concerning freedoms of religions," concluded the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday. Such acts would "fuel discrimination, extremism and misperception leading to polarization and fragmentation with dangerous unintended and unforeseen consequences," it charged. The Muslim community in Switzerland accounts for about 4.5% of the population.

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Srebrenica Genocide is not a matter of anybody's opinion; it's a judicial fact recognized first by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and subsequently by the International Court of Justice.